The secret genius of modern life
Stacey Solomon's crafty Christmas
As Louis XV. of France, he had a mistress sent to his apartment in Versailles in a freight elevator.
Professor Hannah Fry teased us about this device, known as the 'flying chair', in The Secret Genius Of Modern Life (BBC2). It was actually a kind of dumb waiter, a box big enough for the king's lovers to squeeze into as they rolled back and forth between floors.
The discreet Professor Hannah told us nothing more, but the memoirs of an 18th-century French aristocrat reveal how the Duchess of Bourbon was once trapped in a flying chair for three hours. If only the guillotine had been so unreliable.
Nowadays, Hannah told us, elevators carry the equivalent of the entire world's population every three days. And statistically, she added, they are the safest way to travel. Far more people are injured when falling down stairs.
I was almost convinced until she mentioned that 27 people died in elevator accidents in the US alone last year. That's the thing about statistics: They can make you believe anything you're told. If she had spent an hour highlighting the death toll, none of us would ever step into an elevator again.
As Louis XV. of France, he had a mistress sent to his apartment in Versailles in a freight elevator. Professor Hannah Fry teased us with this device known as the “flying chair” in The Secret Genius Of Modern Life.
Nowadays, Hannah told us, elevators carry the equivalent of the entire world's population every three days. And statistically, she added, they are the safest way to travel. Far more people are injured when falling down stairs
The endless excitement that Prof. Hannah feels while testing the theories is infectious and the whole series was fun
Safety statistics are less interesting, but this show brilliantly explained how a Victorian inventor named Elijah Otis convinced the public that flying chairs had greatly improved since the time of the Duchess of Bourbon.
Shadow puppets – paper silhouettes moved with sticks – recreated Elias' dramatic stunt at the 1854 World's Fair in New York. He built a tower with an elevator, stood in the top floor and had an assistant cut the rope. The tray only fell a few inches before the safety mechanism stopped it.
Hannah performed a stunt that looked even more dangerous: She sat on the roof of an elevator at a German test site and was able to show us the metal cables that suspended it over an 800-foot drop. She looked and sounded really scared, but her belief in science and statistics allowed her to keep talking.
As a cynic about science and statistics, I wouldn't dream of sitting in an elevator. Not to mention Isaac Newton's laws of motion, common sense is safest.
The endless excitement that Prof. Hannah feels while testing the theories is infectious and the whole series was fun. This time she showed us how counterweights work, not only in elevators but also in giant medieval catapults called trebuchets.
Stacey Solomon is well prepared for power outages. With the help of her local Women's Institute, she made candle nightlights as gifts for visitors to her local food bank for her Crafty Christmas
Using Lego models, she demonstrated what happens if an elevator rope breaks. And she ended with a look into the future, operating an elevator supported entirely by electromagnets that could move sideways as well as up and down.
She did not say what would happen if there was a power outage. But I think we can guess.
Stacey Solomon is well prepared for power outages. With the help of her local Women's Institute, she made candle night lights as gifts for visitors to her local food bank for her Crafty Christmas (BBC1). And she turned her husband Joe Swash into a walking enlightenment by sewing fairy lights onto a tracksuit.
The fun she's having is unfeigned, but it's ironic that throughout the rest of Sort Your Life Out, Stacey urges us to clear out the trash from our homes. This Christmas, she shows us how to fill them with toilet paper nutcracker soldiers, wreaths that look like plum pudding, and three-tiered chandeliers that look like nothing in the world.
Half an hour of this would be more than enough. After 60 minutes I mumbled: 'Bah! Humbug!'